{"id":3430,"date":"2025-10-27T16:30:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/?p=3430"},"modified":"2025-12-20T14:14:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T18:14:55","slug":"facial-confusion-lower-court-misapplication-of-the-facial-as-applied-distinction-in-second-amendment-cases-peter-patterson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/facial-confusion-lower-court-misapplication-of-the-facial-as-applied-distinction-in-second-amendment-cases-peter-patterson\/","title":{"rendered":"Facial Confusion: Lower Court Misapplication of the Facial\/As-Applied Distinction in Second Amendment Cases – Peter Patterson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Following the Supreme Court\u2019s invocation of\u00a0United States v. Salerno<\/em>[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0to defeat a Second Amendment claim in\u00a0United States v. Rahimi<\/em>,[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0lower courts have begun misapplying the distinction between facial and as-applied challenges to reject Second Amendment claims.\u00a0Antonyuk v. James<\/em>[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0is a prime example. There, the Second Circuit reviewed an order that had preliminarily enjoined a New York law that criminalized carrying a firearm in public parks. The Second Circuit vacated the injunction, but it did not conclude that the State was likely to succeed in showing that banning guns in parks generally is consistent with the Nation\u2019s history of firearm regulation. Rather, the court seized on the \u201cfacial\u201d nature of the plaintiffs\u2019 challenge to conclude that the injunction should be vacated. In the court\u2019s telling, a facial challenge requires a challenger to show that a law \u201cis unconstitutional in all its applications,\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Antonyuk\u00a0<\/em>plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed in doing so because the State had shown \u201ca well-established and representative tradition of firearm regulation in often-crowded public squares such as urban parks.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Indeed, the court was clear that it only needed to assess whether New York\u2019s park ban was likely constitutional \u201cinsofar as the regulation prohibits firearms in\u00a0urban\u00a0<\/em>parks\u201d to sustain the law.[6]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Thus, the court concluded, the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed in their facial challenge because \u201cthe law has a plainly legitimate sweep as to urban parks,\u201d although \u201cdoubt[ing] that the evidence presently in the record could set forth a well-established tradition of prohibiting firearm carriage in rural parks.\u201d[7]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having concluded that the State had shown a likelihood of success in supporting a ban on firearms in urban parks, the court considered its job done in evaluating the plaintiffs\u2019 facial challenge.[8]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Thus, the court never asked whether the State had demonstrated that banning carry in parks\u00a0generally\u00a0<\/em>is consistent with the Nation\u2019s history of firearm regulation.[9]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0By failing to make this broader inquiry, the court did not properly analyze the facial claim before it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> to read the full piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/sup><\/a> 481 U.S. 739 (1987).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> 144 S.Ct. 1889, 1898 (2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a> 120 F.4th 941 (2d Cir. 2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/sup><\/a> Id. <\/em>at 983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/sup><\/a> Id. <\/em>at 1026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/sup><\/a> Id<\/em>.<\/em> at 1019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/sup><\/a> Id<\/em>.<\/em> at 1025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/sup><\/a> See Antonyuk<\/em>, 120 F.4th <\/em>at 1025\u201326.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/sup><\/a> Antonyuk <\/em>is not a one-off decision. The Fourth Circuit, to take another example, recently rejected a challenge to Fairfax County, Virginia\u2019s ban on guns in parks. The court concluded that the ban was constitutional at least \u201cas applied to the three preschools and one preschool program on park property,\u201d a conclusion the court determined \u201cdoom[ed]\u201d the plaintiffs\u2019 facial challenge to the ban. LaFave v. County of Fairfax, Va., — F.4th –, 2025 WL 2458491, at *5 (4th Cir. 2025); see also, e.g.<\/em>, <\/em>Wolford v. Lopez, 116 F.4th 959, 983\u201384 (9th Cir. 2024).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction Following the Supreme Court\u2019s invocation of\u00a0United States v. Salerno[1]\u00a0to defeat a Second Amendment claim in\u00a0United States v. Rahimi,[2]\u00a0lower courts have begun misapplying the distinction between facial and as-applied challenges to reject Second Amendment claims.\u00a0Antonyuk v. James[3]\u00a0is a prime example. There, the Second Circuit reviewed an order that had preliminarily enjoined a New York law that criminalized carrying a firearm in public parks. The Second Circuit vacated the injunction, but it did not conclude that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[77],"class_list":["post-3430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-per-curiam","tag-second-amendment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZSiL-Tk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}